Where the money will go:

£16000 for a manager to run the larder . The person currently running it is too ill to continue and we urgently need a salaried manager in at a cost of £16k

(For 1 years running cost)

The photos you see here are of items which have all been saved from landfill.

Dine With Us Community Larder, our Food Bank project launched in Jan 2018 and relocated in February 2019, is giving access to vital nourishment for those suffering food poverty. The need for this is much greater than we anticipated and we now need more partners so we can ensure that we have enough food to meet the demand and we need to secure our future for those who rely on us. We are incurring significant costs operating the programme, with the yearly rent on the unit, electricity costs, water costs and other sundries.

Last week alone we saved 1575 kg of cornflakes from Landfill, which we distributed to over 20 childcare providers, many supporting underprivileged children who are not fed breakfast. Counting those schools and our normal service users last week we helped well over 1000 families alone. On a normal week we support between 300 and 400 families, including sending care packages to schools, whose families are referred through safeguarding officers.

Fresh fruit and vegetables and a protein play a pivotal part in our organization, in encouraging people to eat more healthily, regardless of their circumstances.

Dine With Us On The Streets - Cherries Legacy where we provide a hot hearty meal, with vegetarian option and pudding, fruit, crisps, sandwiches, hot drinks, treats on Saturdays at 5.30.

Dine With Us Community Larder currently collects on a daily basis (am and pm) from 35 food providers across Bedford and MK. The excess food which comes to us would otherwise end up in landfill. On a daily basis, with this food, we hand out bread, cakes, fruit, veg and sandwiches.

Through safeguarding officers referrals in schools we provide food care packages to families, with children, in need of food assistance and also provide breakfast to those children the school are feeding who don’t get breakfast before school.

We open on a Thursday, at the unit, with our target service user being those we have supported since January 2018, those on means tested benefits and the homeless, but we have, this year, opened up the criteria to allow others to access our food such as the working poor.

When volunteers and stock allows (rarely) we also run a social supermarket on a weekend giving more people access to affordable food, especially those who work but are still struggling financially.

I hope this helps you understand the work we undertake and how valuable our service is to many different sectors within our Community.